>>20004545
It added: 'As we approach the holiday season, when many of us will be gathering together with family and friends, please remember to take necessary precautions to protect your health.
'Wash your hands, cover your cough, stay home when ill and stay up to date on vaccines.'
Doctors say patients are mostly suffering from a fever, cough and fatigue.
It is unclear if any deaths have resulted from the illness and officials have not responded to requests for more information.
The above image pictures the lungs during 'white lung syndrome' or acute respiratory distress syndrome, which is diagnosed via the white spots or opaque areas appearing in the lungs. The above patient was a 57-year-old man who was infected with the flu and had non-hodgkin's lymphoma, or a cancer of the white blood cells, back in 2014
Pictured above is Dr Clint Koenig, who warned that hospitalizations in Warren County, Ohio, have been rising over the last few week
Dr John Kelley, from Redwood Pediatrics in western Massachusetts, said they were seeing a spike in pediatric hospitalizations in their area
In Massachusetts, doctors say the main issue is RSV, a respiratory virus that kills more than 10,000 Americans each year, mostly young children and the elderly.
Dr John Kelley, from Redwood Pediatrics in East Longmeadow, told Western Mass News: 'This is the season for RSV and we're seeing a whole lot of itโฆ a lot of kids with upper viral respiratory infections, cough, runny nose, some fevers and the thinking with RSV is that it can cause lower viral respiratory infections, so they get spread to your lungs.'
He said 80 percent of the kids with 'walking pneumonia' develop the infection as a result of first having RSV, while the remaining 20 percent of the cases are usually attributed to bacteria, which can be treated with antibiotics.
Footage has emerged of workers in Hazmat suits spraying classrooms allegedly in the city of Sanhe, about 40 miles east of Beijing. It was posted by activists based in New York who said the footage was recent
Footage has emerged of health workers in China spraying disinfectant in streets and schools.
Clad in hazmat suits, gloves and masks, the staff are shown walking between desks in classrooms, hallways and even outdoors while releasing a mist of sterilising liquid
In Ohio, the county was first alerted to the spike after schools said they were recording more children off sick than normal.
The 142 cases were reported to the county from multiple school districts across their area. There are 12 school districts in Warren County, Ohio.
A spokeswoman for the county health department said this was the first year they had recorded a pneumonia outbreak.
CDC director Dr Mandy Cohen pictured testifying today on Capitol Hill
She added that other indicators were showing 'typical resporatory pathogen [spread] for this time of year'.
A spokeswoman for the Ohio Health Department added that statewide they were not recording 'unusual numbers of respiratory disease outbreaks for this time of year'.
CDC data also shows pneumonia fatalities are not surging out of the ordinary for this time of year nationwide.
Data on deaths from pneumonia and the flu among children and teenagers which they record shows the figures are at typical levels for this time of year.
Speaking to local reporters, Warren County's medical director Dr Clint Koenig said: 'We have seen hospitalizations [for child pneumonia] tick up in the last couple of weeks so we do ask parents to be vigilant.
'Our school districts have called in starting roughly in August, but really picking up in mid to late October.
'We've also been noticing a lot of cases of kids being absent and the resulting diagnosis being pneumonia.'
A source at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said their data showed childhood pneumonia levels in other states were following 'seasonal trends'.
'Nothing is flagging out of the ordinary, but we are continuing to monitor,' they said.
Mycoplasma pneumoniae normally causes a mild flu-like illness, sometimes called 'walking pneumonia'. Cases are most common in younger children.
Some antibiotics, such as penicillin, have no effect.
Dr Amesh Adalja, from Johns Hopkins University, cautioned it was important not to attach too much to just one outbreak in Ohio
Dr Scott Roberts, from Yale, said this may be another sign that children still have weaker immunity than before the pandemic
Strep also normally causes a mild illness and tends to leave patients with sore throats. It's more common among those aged five to 15 years old.
And adenovirus, which has also been detected in patients, causes symptoms similar to the common cold.
p2